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A Russian-born businessman with ties to President Donald Trump claims to have been a spy working with American intelligence for more than 20 years, according to a statement his spokesman said he provided to government investigators.

Felix Sater said in the statement that he “provided extraordinary assistance to our government involving serious matters of National Security, posing tremendous risks to my safety and the safety of my family.”

Sater has been drawn into the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which are being spearheaded by special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees, because of his apparent ties to potential Trump business deals in Russia. In emails that were reported by the Washington Post last year, Sater appeared to try to convince Trump in 2015 to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow and to visit Russia.

Republicans on the House intelligence committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have refused Democratic entreaties to subpoena Twitter for direct messages of Donald Trump associates, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell The Daily Beast.

Honest question: What would justify subpoenaing those DMs? I feel its pretty obvious that there's going to be shady shit in them by way of politics being shady, but I'm not sure there'd be something damning. Also, if I was the GOP, I'd be wary of those DMs being leaked selectively.

That said, are twitter DMs any different than a person's emails? Mueller and committee's have subpoenaed them. I would think, though, emails requested would be limited in scope, so DMs should follow the same limitations.

Lastly, Mueller isn't an idiot. I'd think he'd have requested from twitter. Though you probably need the force of the law for them to hand them over, so GJ subpoena? Would evidence enough to justify an email subpoena be enough to justify one for DMs? I'd think so.

Robert Mueller’s special counsel team has questioned several Russian oligarchs about the possibility that they illegally funneled Russian money into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a CNN report published Wednesday evening.

In recent months, however, it has stopped at least two Russian oligarchs when they arrived at US airports to question them. One oligarch, according to sources who spoke to CNN, had his electronic devices searched after his private jet landed at a New York airport.

Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?

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Apr 10, 2018, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Not a super-accurate drive-by, but the NRA has admitted it accepts foreign donations and gotten some from Russians, but claim the money was fire-walled from political spending.

So that's interesting.

That's just as dumb as the "we don't use tax dollars to fund abortions." Sure, but since you used that Russian money to pay administrative costs and whatever else you need to, suddenly a bunch more "kosher" money is freed up for political spending.

It's the standard strategy of easing the knife in.

1. Of course we didn't accept any foreign money!
2. Okay, maybe we did accept a little foreign money, but it wasn't used for politics!
3. Okay so maybe we used a little of it for politics, but whataboutism!
4. **** you.

The back of the napkin math is pretty simple. Justice might supposed to be blind, but no one is going after the President's personal lawyer, even for unrelated matters, in such a manner, without having some very compelling evidence.

I would actually be mildly surprised if one of our former resident conservatives thought this was a fishing expedition.

In the hours that followed Mr. Trump’s initial anger over the Deutsche Bank reports, his lawyers and advisers worked quickly to learn about the subpoenas, and ultimately were told by Mr. Mueller’s office that the reports were not accurate, leading the president to back down.

So...will we get to the weekend without Trump firing Mueller? Everyone says it would be political suicide for him to do so, but would it really? Would the republicans really do anything? Or, would they see it as an opportunity to get rid of the manchild and install an actual adult (Pence...ugh) that they can reliably work with?

The GOP calculus is an interesting thing. I think they're too spineless. Them refusing to protect Mueller shouldn't be surprising though. It sends a negative message about the President, and as we know, party before country.

The other aspect, to me, is I think voting for something that would publicly undermine the president this could get some republicans primaried, if not worse. It's what makes them reinstating Mueller so hard to predict.

Though I would say after the election thing McConnell is not to be trusted and Ryan's consent of Nunes' actions is another red flag.

That's just as dumb as the "we don't use tax dollars to fund abortions." Sure, but since you used that Russian money to pay administrative costs and whatever else you need to, suddenly a bunch more "kosher" money is freed up for political spending.

I don't think it's that simple though. The issue lies in how heavily any entity leans on that funding (PP clearly leans heavily on governmental reimbursements, so yes, you're a few degrees removed from funding abortions). It's be interesting to see what the increases the NRA had in income, donations and political spending, and if there is any correlation.

The National Rifle Association has accepted contributions from about 23 Russians, or Americans living in Russia, since 2015, the gun rights group acknowledged to Congress.

The NRA said in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., unveiled on Wednesday, that the sum it received from those people was just over $2,500 and most of that was "routine payments" for membership dues or magazine subscriptions.

That's not a lot of money. Though I wonder if they're answering narrowly. What about Russian organization? Or Russian-linked?

This is the part where they admit to a little bit of foreign money. Later they'll sink the knife in a little deeper and admit there was more money.

Right. I'm not discounting that you're right, but given my partisan bias, let alone my general cynicism, I'm trying to take things at face value ATM. I like speculating, but I don't feel comfortable doing here for whatever reason.

In addition to representing the administration before the Supreme Court, Francisco, a former law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, could be in line to oversee the Mueller inquiry if Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is fired.

I found out what that “something the Russians may have on Trump” Comey was talking about. It turns out Stormy is the daughter of the oligarch that bought the Trump property at an over inflated price. Her real name is Ivana Sukmov.

Moscow routed millions of dollars to the U.S. expecting the funds would benefit ex-President Bill Clinton’s charitable initiative while his wife, Hillary Clinton, worked to reset relations with Russia, an FBI informant in an Obama administration-era uranium deal stated.

The Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have risen to the center of controversy over a 2010 nuclear deal that handed Russia control of 20 percent of the U.S.’s uranium supply. The Uranium One deal has been referred to as a Russian nuclear bribery scheme and similar names since government documents surfaced last week showing the FBI had substantial evidence of racketeering by Russian officials before the Obama administration approved the deal.

Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?

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Apr 18, 2018, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Chongo

I don’t reeeeeeeeely neeeeeed to beleeeeeeive anything.

Chongo: Please always remember that Democrats love abortions. That fact has helped many many Trump voters sleep at night, knowing that voting for Trump has directly led to the immediate repeal of Roe vs. Wade and abortions have stopped happening.

Cohen dropped his defamation suit against buzzfeed. Talking out of my ass, I wonder if this because SDNY is now in possession of all of Cohens material and therefore he couldn't hold anything back in discovery.

(CNN)The Democratic National Committee is suing the Trump campaign, Russia, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and several relatives and associates of President Donald Trump alleging a grand conspiracy that harmed Democrats through WikiLeaks' publication of internal party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It might get settled for PR reasons, or go somewhere if more substantial evidence turns up. Based on current evidence, expertsthink it's on shaky legal ground.

The short version: the claims against the Russians are solid. But as the Russians will be a no-show, those claims won't go anywhere. All the other claims are unlikely to stick. WikiLeaks is a news organization for example, and can't really be sued for publishing news-worthy items. Only the actual leakers could be sued.

As legal suits move forward at a crawl, the DNC may have filed in anticipation of more details emerging. At present, not a single claim has turned up against Trump personally. I'm starting to wonder if he's more in the (noisy) puppet category, and really doesn't know what his machine was up to. Mueller has turned up a heck of a lot of smoke, and some small fires. But hasn't tied it together into a conspiracy in my opinion. Not yet, anyway.